Patrick Lam

Thoughts and travels of Patrick Lam

Review: The Last Front Line by Brendan O'Dwyer

How the sausage is made: Brendan O’Dwyer writes about building the Paparoa Great Walk on NZ’s West Coast.

Around the Mountain Circuit (Taranaki), January 2 to 5, 2023

A walk around the mountain (Taranaki). Pretty chill except for day 3 which had super high winds and day 2 which had a short amount of muddy steep terrain.

Christmas on the South Island: Gillepsie, Mueller Hut, glacier kayaking, and rock climbing

Christmas 2022 trip. Like everyone in New Zealand and many people from overseas, we flew in to Queenstown. Got away from the huge hordes by going to Wanaka (small hordes) and Mount Cook Village (some visitors). Did many of the things we’d been planning: Gillespie Circuit, glacier kayaking, Mueller Hut. Also went rock climbing in Wanaka. Featuring many pictures of Wanaka grebes.

Queenstown, Makarora, Wanaka, and not Gillespie

The planned logistics for the Gillespie trip were simple: rent a car, stay at the Wonderland Lodge in Makarora the night before, take a jetboat across the river, walk, and take a jetboat back from Kerin Forks. The jetboat avoids the biggest river crossings. Ironically, the day before we were to go, we got a call saying that there wasn’t enough water to run the jetboat. That’s fine, it should be easy to cross the river in that case.